A fragmentary leaf from a Breviary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [England or France, mid-12th century]

A fragmentary leaf from a Breviary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum

[England or France, mid-12th century]

200 × 145mm, ruled in leadpoint for two columns of at least 26 lines (lines missing at the top and bottom), written in a fine Romanesque bookhand, with numerous rubrics in red, the text comprising from the week of Ash Wednesday to the first Sunday in Lent, with rubric “Dominica in quadragesima”, decorated with two-line initials alternately red or blue; recovered from use as a pastedown in a binding, with consequent, cropping, creases, worm-holes, etc., but still handsome and easily legible.

Provenance

1. Sotheby’s, 19 June 1990, part of lot 3 (“part leaf of a Breviary, very fine script, 12 red and blue initials, France or England, twelfth century”), bought by Sam Fogg for £825.
2. Bruce Ferrini, of Akron, OH: with his pencil stock number “VM 7063”.
3. A distinguished private collection, London.

Due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Reformation in the mid-16th century, complete English liturgical manuscripts are extremely rare, as are substantial portions of them. It is true that many thousands of fragments survive, but the vast majority of these date from the 13th century or later, and represent the Use of Sarum, which became standard from the mid-13th century onwards. The present fragment may be a rare witness of the pre-Sarum liturgy of an English diocese or monastery. For an introduction to the subject, see J.B.L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, VI: Introduction to the English Monastic Breviaries (Henry Bradshaw Society: London, 1942).